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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

·First lesson: it is politically
inadequate and democratically intolerable to continue to take decisions without
offering appropriate explanations, without clarifying why thousands of millions
are being transferred from the Public Treasury to banking institutions or to
Autonomous Communities, without citizens knowing why certain financial
institutions have accrued those enormous debts or why certain Autonomous
Communities are facing such an urgent lack of liquidity. Catalonia, for
example, has double the population of Valencia and it is a well-known fact that
Catalonia has invested in large industrial, scientific and technological
installations, independently of the fact that it has also made mistakes and
incurred expenditures beyond what would have been advisable, although the most
important banking institution of Catalonia has been able to resist the impact
of market fluctuations suffered during the last few years.

In
Valencia –I’m referring to differences, the details of which I would like to
know, as would the general population- there has been much unwarranted and even
unlawful spending, with accusations of corruption, and two banks that have gone
bankrupt with none of the guilty having been brought to justice so far, and
with huge investments (I’d rather not mention the Castellon airport) in
colossal sports events and in Formula 1 circuits…

I’ve
written the foregoing merely because I would like for someone to quickly
explain this situation, why there has been so much fuss in some cases and so
little in others, why they have suddenly decided to give the same amount that
these Autonomous Communities have asked for to a single institution in Madrid
whose deficit exceeds 20,000 millions… or why a single bank in Galicia needs a
5,000 million euro rescue, the same amount that the Catalan community requires
to meet its liquidity requirements…

·Another lesson: a significant amount
of the “rescue” funds will come from the state lottery. Thank goodness that the
lottery wasn’t privatized. Thank goodness that we still have RENFE, which is
now beginning to really increase in value…! I remember that only ten years ago,
privatization was seen as the perfect solution. The Nation-States have been
dismantled. The lesson to be learned is that this was not the best solution.
The right formula is for a State to maintain a majority interest in at least
all of its large public service institutions. Of a democratic State, that is.

·Another lesson: what interest rate
will the banks that have received funds at 1% from the ECB’s “open bar” charge
ICO for the money intended for the Autonomous Communities? The lesson is that
we must avoid this vicious circle, which we won’t understand until we know
clearly and once and for all what is the interest rate to be paid and the
magnitude of the recovery of the debt previously incurred by the large European
institutions, and especially the German ones.

·Another lesson: the disenchantment
that citizens feel toward political parties and the Parliament is quite
alarming and will not improve until these institutions start keeping citizens
well-informed, especially at present when so many people face critical
circumstances and are beginning to have serious problems to survive under
minimum conditions. It’s better to provide timely information; it’s better to approach
citizens resolutely than to progressively distance themselves, making citizens
feel mislead, confused and hopeless.